Although this new year won’t see any Star Wars films, I’m writing this post about the idea of them anyway, under the assumption that the next three films to release are all the ones that Kathleen Kennedy announced at Celebration last year.
Since we know nothing about these movies besides their directors and basic story outlines, let’s not waste any time guessing on what their eventual release order will be—because one actually got a release date before I finished writing this. Whoops, pretend you don’t know that for a bit.
This thread is for one debate: I believe I can make the most solid case for which order they should be released in.
When they’re ready, these three films should be released at least two years apart with no films between them, and Dave Filoni’s New Republic film should come out first.
Without a doubt it would be the biggest mistake to release this film at any other time. Half the marketing job is already done! There’s such a massive casual following of The Mandalorian and its connected stories. There would be no better segue back to the big screen for Star Wars than with something everyone’s already extra interested in.
For the more tuned-in folks, Filoni’s name holds even extra weight. We may have our misgivings with some of his work, but that doesn’t deny the widespread sense of trust in this man’s study of Lucas’s works and the actual quality of what he and his crew puts out there. That’s another pull factor.
Note that most of The Bad Batch hasn’t come from Filoni at all, rather from other showrunners who used to work with him. Most of the criticisms people have of The Mandalorian come from Jon Favreau’s writing as well. This isn’t to amplify or detract from Filoni’s accomplishments, rather to emphasize the constructive influence he has on other creators when he’s actually there collaborating with them. I really hope a team of writers is around to help him sort this film out, because that might have been helpful for Ahsoka and the other series.
If you’ll excuse one purely emotional argument here, I’ll call to attention the fact that Dave Filoni directed the Star Wars film that preceded a theatrical hiatus and started The Clone Wars as a television series. Assuming The Mandalorian and other series actually end their runs before his film releases, Filoni will also have the chance to end the current film hiatus and finish off a chapter of Star Wars television. It’s like poetry, it rhymes, and he deserves it.
Also, with how the story will rely on preceding television series, which some people feel are fading out…this film might easily turn out to be the worst one. Best to get it over with.
The old stuff needs its proper and uninterrupted sense of completion. Once that’s done, new stuff starts to look even more appealing—so James Mangold’s Jedi origin film should be released second.
There isn’t much to say here beyond a vaguely alluring new beginning, and that Mangold is a great director. Skip to the kicker below.
Now that we’d have seen how people before started something new through these ancient Jedi, we’d naturally be curious about how that could then apply to the present day and further future. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s film about Rey and the next Jedi should be the final release of these three.
This one was actually confirmed to be releasing first, so I’m too late to write this without influence from the true release order. Vice interviewed Obaid-Chinoy a while back, and she said the next Star Wars film would be hers.
Disney later pushed the release date of said next Star Wars film to May 22, 2026. That’s our day, whether I think it’s a good one or not. I graduate from college just under a week before then, so at least it’s not the same weekend!
The real reason I think this film should’ve been set to release last is because it needs to be the best one. This film has the most weight on its shoulders, with Rey as the main character and a whole new era of Star Wars to carry forward. She deserves all the best, and I hope Lucasfilm is able to deliver that without any time crunches from Disney, especially so they can convince John Boyega to return as Finn.
The reality of a sooner release might act in our favor, though. John Williams un-retired again, saying he’d be excited if another film came along for him to score. Nothing new for him, really—but Rey is pretty much his favorite Star Wars character. We can dream!
If you’re convinced already that my order flows really well from both a producer’s and a consumer’s perspectives, awesome! I’m sorry to tell you that it won’t happen. I think I have one more reason why this would have worked so well, and maybe you hadn’t noticed until now: this mirrors the original-prequel-sequel release structure.
The High Republic publishing project has been released in three phases with the same arrangement: the initial storyline, a contextualizing storyline set earlier, and then a closing storyline set ahead of the original with that full weight in mind.
We’d be following our own hero’s journey as the audience, traveling from known to unknown over time and being readier than ever to move forward at the end of it all.
Except we won’t be going in that direction, as what I thought would be the best final film will now come out first. No complaints, though—it’s all still unknown and open for us to feel hopeful. I’d love to know what you all think about my proposed release order and how it’s now different from the real one.
I look forward to taking this journey with you all.
